Caltech, church land-use dispute set to come before Pasadena City Council

The Pasadena City Council on Monday, March 2, is poised to face a local church community fueled by stern opposition to a neighboring scientific hub, Caltech, which wants to build a research building being built next door.

St. Philip the Apostle Church’s grounds include a school that sits next to a vacant parking lot at 1364 Green St. The parking lot is where Caltech is aiming to build a four-story, 93,539-square-foot research building with 260 subterranean parking spaces.

The City Council will be hearing an appeal of the Design Commission decision to approve the new building, which critics of the project say exceeds height limits and will create traffic safety issues, among other things.

Despite opposition at its meeting last month, the Design Committee unanimously approved the concept design for the project.

The potential development would be an innovation center designed as a research and development office building with laboratory space to support the university’s startup ecosystem, according to Caltech’s website.

Ed Roohan described St. Philip as his family’s second home since 1993 and where his four children went to school over nine years. He said he and his fellow parishioners do not believe it’s a forgone conclusion that the project will move forward.

“We’ve got tremendous leadership at City Council and the mayor’s office and I think they’ll listen and this is what the community process is all about is getting everyone’s collective wisdom and then our leaders that have done an amazing job for the last 140 years they get to decide if the process has been done correctly and at this point we do not think it has been,” Roohan said.

At minimum, opponents of the project argue that the project should not have been deemed exempt from the environmental review process and are asking that a full environmental impact review is completed.

Roohan said the proposed project’s size is not aligned with the vision for that community as spelled out in the East Colorado Specific Plan.

“If it can be done on Green and Holliston, it can essentially be done anywhere in our 23 square miles in the city of Pasadena, so I think it’s a wake-up call for the entire city because it could impact their precious school or church or other institution,” Roohan said. “I think it just doesn’t relate to this one 40,000-square-foot lot.”

Pasadena Planning Director Jennifer Paige said the land use is allowed by right in the zoning code.

“The staff recommendation is for approval and the Design Commission approved the Concept Design Review for the project,” Paige said in an email.

Paige said city officials could not comment further on the project.

The university said the new building will be a place for research advances that lead to products, treatments, technologies and services.

“While Caltech faculty have spun off hundreds of businesses since 1990, many of these faculty spin-offs were required to move to more established hubs, such as San Diego and San Francisco, to get the mix of office and laboratory space they need,” Caltech’s website read. “When they leave, they take private investment dollars and high-quality jobs with them. However, when they put down roots here in Pasadena, faculty businesses typically build and renovate locally rather than move away as they grow.”

Fred Farina, Caltech chief innovation and corporate partnerships officer, said he was surprised by the level of opposition to the project.

He said for years Caltech officials have been thinking about a way to expand its work at a site in Pasadena. It purchased the property next to the church and later decided to use it for the expansion.

“If you look at that area, it’s pretty desolate at this point. We’re proposing a beautiful building, low intensity in terms of occupancy because it’s an R and D building to do things that are potentially transformational to healthcare, cure diseases, all really interesting things,” Farina said. “I thought people would be enthusiastic about having something like this not to mention the jobs creation, raising the visibility of Pasadena.”

Farina said no timeline has been set for construction, but if the project moves forward construction could begin this fall with an estimated two-year construction time.

An online petition opposing the project had garnered more than 1,500 signatures as of Friday afternoon.

“We have a really amazing environment in Pasadena and we don’t capitalize on this because we don’t have the facilities … . I think it’s something that we should be capitalizing on by keeping these companies around, growing them in the area, attracting really good jobs,” Farina said.

Monday’s meeting begins at 6 p.m. and will be streamed on YouTube.